Perennial vegetables: mostly duds, a few I'd plant again.
Can you plant vegetables once and have decades of harvest? Sometimes. But often, this idea is too good to be true.
Cliff notes:
-I have tried many perennial vegetables. Most are duds.
-The perennial vegetables I continue to grow for at least some food value: Asparagus, Chives, Corn salad, Garlic, Good King Henry, Hops, Miner’s Lettuce, possibly Nettles (trust me on this one), Nodding onion, Rhubarb, Sculpit, and Shiitakes.
Perennial vegetables seem so ideal. Plant them once, and harvest for decades. There is no messing around with starting from seed every year. But my experience has shown that the harvest from these is often quite small, only available for a short period of the year, or the flavor/texture sucks.
My plantings were inspired by permaculture literature, and a book called 80 Plants Around the World by Stephen Barstow. This is a fascinating book about how various cultures around the world use non-conventional plants as vegetables. Many “ornamental” plants we grow are actually used as food plants in other world cultures.
I still like the idea of perennial vegetables, and I will keep trying to find those plants that are **practical** to grow by asking other gardeners what has worked well for them in our region.
Here are notes on the perennial vegetables I’ve tried:
Artichokes: I planted with much neglect and they struggled. I’m trying again, and will report back.
Asparagus I struggled with for some years, but have since had success. I will write a post soon describing what’s worked for me. The spears are available April/May/June.
Buckshorn plantain: way too small to fiddle with.
Chives: the flavor of the leaf of this popular allium strikes me as bitter. But I really like the sweet flavor of the snipped flowers. Break the flowers apart, try them on tacos, or on freshly baked buttered bread. You’ll be amazed. Or, leave the flowers for the bees, who love it!
Corn Salad: a reseeding annual like that is available fresh mid-winter. Small, but hearty for its size. Slugs leave it alone.
Crosnes: makes puny little tubers that are impossible to clean. Tastes a bit like water chestnut. Boring.
Dandelion: well, I didn’t need to introduce this one. The flavor of the leaves is super bitter but some people really like it. If you have enough flowers to make a dandelion jelly though, you’ll be amazed by the flavor - complex and honey-like. Martha Stewart had a recipe I followed but I can’t find a link any longer.
Daylily: I have had the flowers and they taste excellent. However, I’ve read conflicting information about toxicity within the daylily family. So far I haven’t had the patience to figure out what kinds I have and whether they are indeed safe to eat.
Egyptian walking onion: too small to bother with.
Fiddleheads: native to our area is lady fern, which people do eat. I find them to be bitter and otherwise bothersome in my mouth. People also eat brackenfern, but these can be toxic. Best of all is supposed to be ostrich fern, native to the east coast, but available for purchase here. Best to cook them well. I tried growing ostrich fern, but neglected it and it has since died. Maybe I will try again some day.
Fuki: survives in my wetland, but I regret planting it due to invasive potential as it is not native here. By the time it is ready to eat, I find I don’t have the appetite for trying it, as there are plenty of other things available in the garden.
Garlic: I love garlic, and continue to replant it in my garden every year from the previous years planting. I like to grow my own for exceptional flavor, ease of growing, and often garden varieties have big fat cloves that are easy to peel - none of that fiddling like with grocery store stuff. I switched most of my plantings over to Red Toch, which is a variety that tastes very good, matures early so I can plant another crop in that space, and lasts longer than other varieties. I will confirm here when I harvest this year if it has been successful (I suspect it will). Also of note is the variety Killarney Red which makes enormous bulbs, even if grown on heavier soils, but it does mature later in July when it is a little more difficult to get some seeds established for succession planting.
Good King Henry is a perennial spinach. The flavor is good, but the harvest time is short. Available Aprilish. Survives drought and some shade in my garden. Seeds around. Slugs leave it alone. Seeds are supposed to be similar to quinoa, I haven’t tried, will update if I do.
Hablitzia/Caucasian mountain spinach. It exists in my garden, but it is struggling from being too high off the ground in a high raised bed. I will move it to another spot at some point and update.
Hopniss: survives in my garden, but I’ve never used it. The roots are small and seem difficult to clean. I have a bazillion other things to do in the garden to bother with this plant when it is available for harvest.
Hops: shoots and newest growth are seriously delicious as a sauteed green, but the plant takes over the world and takes a long time to gather a sizable quantity. I have a friend who suffers an allergic reaction when she touches it so beware. The shoots are available April-ish, then the tender green tops are available for several months.
Horseradish keeps croaking on me. Not sure why. I don’t really like horseradish anyway, so I gave up.
Jeruselum Artichoke: takes up a ton of space for a very small harvest and didn’t really care for them when I tried eating them.
Kale, perennial: I’ve tried a few kinds, and find them to be disease and insect prone. Since I’m so successful with annual varieties, I have no need to pursue it. If the perennial kale interests you, check out this video from a UK grower who has some interesting thoughts on the topic (he grows both perennial and annual kale).
Leeks: some varieties are perennials. However, the perennials tend to not size up very well - a wimpy harvest. Or they bolt. I recall buying one in a four inch pot from a local nursery. They grow as teeny tiny bulbs all crammed together, resulting in plants no bigger than grass. I tried asking for growing information but never got a clear answer, and they never moved beyond grass size in my garden. I also tried a perennial type from seed, the results similar. Now I stick to annual leeks, which grow big and fat.
Lovage has survived significant neglect in my garden, but I have never made use of it. It seems like it would be an overpowering flavor. I’d love to hear feedback from those who make use of it.
Mashua: died quickly for me - I suspect disease. They seem too small so haven’t tried again.
Miner’s lettuce: not a perennial, but a native reseeding annual. Very small, but a satisfying green that is available mid-winter. Slugs leave it alone.
Mitsuba tastes awful to me.
Nettles: if picked with gloves and sauteed (just the tender green tops) are actually delicious and the sting is removed by the cooking process. They are available mid-march/april, a time when nothing else is really coming out of the garden. Also, I’m not generally “woo-woo” about herbs but the nutrition profile really is impressive. I’m considering allowing them in my garden for these reasons, and because they are a very important butterfly host plant. Some species of butterflies host **solely** on nettles.
Nodding onion I grow as a habitat plant, as it is native here. It is a traditional food plant. However, it’s flowers are bitter to me (unlike chives). I haven’t made much use of the rest of the plant, as it seems too small to bother with. They are, however, available all year for eating, and would be a good “just in case I need it” plant to have on hand.
Oca: I’ve tried this a couple times. One time it died. Another, I got a fairly good harvest and the flavor is quite good. And no pest or disease issues. I must not have saved the tuber correctly for planting because it shriveled and died - I will try again some day. Since I think this is one worth considering, I will link to the best info site I know on this species.
Potato onions: are actually shallots. I find them to be much too small to bother growing as onions, and too strong to use as shallots. They do last a heck of a long time in storage though. For those folks focusing on food security this would be a good choice because you buy them once and replant forever, like garlic.
Ramps: I’ve tried growing from seed in a haphazard way. They didn’t grow. I’ve never heard anyone else having success in our area.
Rhubarb: I like for strawberry-rhubarb preserves. Evidently there are some savory ways to use this veg, I’ll try in the future.
Salad Burnet: way too small to be of much use. Fibrous and tough.
Sculpit: survives neglect in my garden. But the harvest is puny. Good for taco toppings. I probably would not plant it again, but since it survives neglect, I leave it alone.
Seakale: tastes disgusting. Really surprised people like this plant. To me it tastes the way broccoli smells when it has been in the fridge way too long and starting to decompose. Maybe I got a bad strain, but it turned me off.
Shallots: I have grown a few kinds. The “french grey” shallot has good flavor. But they are so small to deal with and end up being too frustrating so I stopped growing them. Other “perennial” shallots I’ve trialed don’t taste good raw, which is what I want a shallot for.
Shiitake and other mushrooms: obviously not a plant, but since I harvest for years from one log, I consider them perennial-like. I adore my shiitakes. They often fruit during times of the year when nothing else is coming out of the garden.
Skirret: I raised some sizable plants from seed. I cannot figure out how on earth you’d clean the extremely skinny roots from dirt without peeling like you would a carrot. My plants died in a heatwave, I have not tried again.
Sorrels: I don’t care for the flavor.
Turkish Rocket: the harvest is tiny, the flavor sucks.
Wasabi: was growing in a pot. Died. Evidently it has specific climate needs. Haven’t bothered shelling out the cash on this one again - I’d rather have more fruit trees for that price.
Yacon: I grew once. I thought the flavor was boring so didn’t bother replanting. Reminded me of jicama.
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Have you tried any of these plants? What were your thoughts?
I love the taste of my sea kale! You might have had a bad strain.
We are very successful with both asparagus and artichokes. Grown in raised beds for multiple years. We really enjoy our raised beds, they are about 2 1/2 feet high, juniper sides which is very long lasting, they will outlive us! I find that Swiss chard and various kale often overwinters. Also fava beans will reseed and the tender green tips are delicious.